A new feature on the JMIR website, open peer review articles, allows JMIR users to sign themselves up as peer reviewers for specific articles currently considered by the Journal (in addition to author- and editor-selected reviewers). [From JMIR site]

All I can say is yay! I really like that *anyone* can sign up to review an article. I only wish this was a bit more widespread.

A second OAW yay goes to the Royal Society who just announced that their journal archive will be made free to access. From their site:

From October 2011, our world-famous journal archive – comprising more than 69,000 articles – will be opened up and all articles more than 70 years old will be made permanently free to access.

4 Responses

Not at the moment. I’m not sure what I think about open review to be honest. I think it might dissuade some people from being negative about submissions. I think negative reviews can be written in a helpful way with enough effort but some people might just take the easy route and only give positive reviews.

I have heard your concerns voiced by other people – I think this is what I liked about the JMIR model, that because people can ‘opt in’ to review something, they probably wouldn’t do it unless they have something constructive to contribute?

Thanks for the mention Fabiana! It was great to meet you. I’m only involved in JMIR in so far as I have been a peer reviewer but I have been following their activity for a long time. JMIR do charge a processing fee although the JHIDC which I did help to set up doesn’t charge a fee for authors or readers.